Unbuttoned.

Unbuttoned

[All this buttoning and unbuttoning ...
18th century suicide note]

   The footprints are not obvious.

   Walking bush tracks rich with leaf mulch
   I come across a lookout
   stopped at many times.
   The view
   of sandstone cliffs divided half way up
   or halfway down by geology's eruptions.
   In the valley, the soft mould of the forest.
   In the air a lyrebird's distinct mimicry,
   the sussurance of water over moss.
   Perhaps there is wattle
   where insects hover in unbearable beauty.
   And a pair of shoes.
   Good shoes, at attention, behind the safety rail.

   In Spring tourists converge to photograph
   each other beneath the municipal cherry
   blossom trees, unless a storm
   beats them to a carpet of expensive confetti.
   And sometimes, as is popularly known,
   visitors from Japan flock
   to the cliff tops to hurl themselves
   into the view, deceptively soft, enticing,
   never to lace or unlace again.